Peyton Manning as 49er makes sense, but not enough

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The talk shows have been buzzing for weeks, if not months, saying the longtime Indianapolis Colts star is looking for a new helmet next season. And the future Hall of Famer has done little to dispel the rumors.

This past week, he complained publicly about seeing the Colts clean out the coaching staff and front office, and he then went on to say it wasn’t a good environment for healing the injured neck that kept him out all season.

By the end of the week, Manning and his owner, Jim Irsay, made a public show of making up, saying they would do what’s best for the team. But it’s clear the quarterback’s not happy. With Stanford’s Andrew Luck waiting for the Colts on draft day, it sure feels like Manning has taken his last snap for the Horseshoes.

Enter the 49ers – the very best option Manning could hope for if he wants to play one or two more seasons and pick up another Super Bowl ring. One could argue the Baltimore Ravens would also be an attractive option. But Ray Lewis and Ed Reed are getting old. Patrick Willis and Justin Smith are in their prime.

So, let’s settle onto our barstools and hash this thing out. Manning coming to San Francisco is a longshot, but now is the season for shameless speculation.

Pro: Imagine combining the football IQs of Jim Harbaugh and Peyton Manning. You’d essentially have a coach on the sideline sending in plays to a coach on the field. Creativity, mismatches, audibles and opportunity would abound.

Con: What if Manning and Harbaugh didn’t get along? Manning, 36, has been calling his own plays and essentially running the offense in Indy for years. Would he be willing to bend to Harbaugh’s will?

Pro: Signing Manning would send the team and the league a clear message that the 49ers are serious about winning, right now. The team would instantly become the biggest story in the league, which is always good for business.

Con: You’d have to let Alex Smith go. The team couldn’t afford them both, and Smith wouldn’t stick around to be a backup. This would be a major test to the team chemistry Harbaugh worked so hard to establish this year.

Pro: Manning would be playing with a huge chip on his shoulder, hoping to show Irsay and the Colts that they made a mistake. He also probably wants to re-establish himself as the best Manning in the league, on the heels of his brother Eli‘s monster year with the Giants.

Con: Manning could reinjure his fused neck on any given play, leaving the team to try to win a Super Bowl with untested second-year quarterback Colin Kaepernick. I’m not convinced that’s a gamble Harbaugh or GM Trent Baalke would be willing to make.

Pro: The Niners would have their best quarterback since Joe Montana. (Apologies to Steve Young supporters, but I have Manning ahead of him on my list.)

Con: The Niners would have their most vulnerable quarterback since Joe Montana.

One could go on with these scenarios – the lifeblood of sports fanaticism – but Manning coming to the 49ers is probably not going to happen.

Harbaugh has staked his claim on team chemistry, and this move might be too risky. The team also has to re-sign key defensive players like Carlos Rogers and Dashon Goldson, and the Colts could choose to keep Manning.

Conclusion: While Manning would look good in red and gold, his arrival would create more headaches than victories.

After that city’s voters approved a measure in June 2010 that promised the 49ers would take on the bulk of the financing for a new stadium, the deal now consists of Santa Clara securing an $850 million loan for the benefit of the team. Hosting 10 games a year, the team and this suburb of 116,000 will struggle mightily to pay that off. The 49ers have said naming rights and seat licenses will help pay back the money, but there are few specifics behind those promises.

It’s such a bad deal that more than 10,000 Santa Clara residents signed a petition asking their city council to let them vote on a stadium a second time.

The council said no this past week. So the stadium opponents are heading to court.

“Why are they so afraid to let this go to a vote?” asked Deborah Bress, a spokeswoman for Santa Clara Plays Fair, an advocacy group formed to fight the stadium’s construction. “They should have lost in the first place. They never explained the cost of this stadium. Nowhere did they say a city agency would be saddled with $850 million in loans.”

Santa Clara City Attorney Richard Nosky recommended rejecting the petitions for a new referendum, saying Measure J, the plan approved in 2010, is “not referendable under California election law.”

I guess we’re going to find out. Opponents are raising funds and promise to let a judge decide.

“This will be tied up in court for years,” said Bress. “If they sue us or we sue them, the whole thing stops. Do they really want that?”

Gambling man: Last week, I wrote about a big-time gambler named Adam Meyer, who planned to put down more than $2 million on the 49ers-Giants game.

Well, things didn’t work out so great for Mr. Meyer on Sunday. He did manage to win $500,000 by laying a big bet on the “under.” But he lost $1.1 million on the game, straight away. When you add the “juice,” or commission charged by the casinos, Meyer lost a total of $1.32 million on that wager.

Add the two together, and you have a net loss of $820,000.

“Here, I lost all this money,” said Meyer last week. “But those death threats to (the game’s goat, Kyle) Williams? That’s awful. I lost more than probably anyone in the world on that game. But I wish him all the best, and I hope people come to their senses. It’s a football game. I feel worse for him than I feel for my money.”

But what about all who followed your advice, Adam?

“I would say, anyone who did lose, they can call my office and I’d offer them a free month of our (handicapping) service,” said Meyer, who runs a company called Adamwins.com. “I’d offer that as an olive branch.”

The Old Man and the Editor: After last Sunday’s devastating loss to the Giants in the NFC Championship game, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh spoke philosophically in the postgame conference, saying, “A man can be destroyed, but he can’t be defeated.”

I thought he might have gotten that backward, but I was wrong.

Harbaugh was quoting Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Old Man and the Sea.”

In his 1952 classic, Hemingway wrote, “Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

A fine sentiment, and one that makes you think a bit.

For those of you still smarting from last week’s loss, consider another one of Hemingway’s lines from that book: “Every day above earth is a good day.”

Al Saracevic is The Chronicle’s Sporting Green editor. You can e-mail him at asaracevic@sfchronicle.com.